Ahead of its Investor Day on December 7, Starbucks Corporation (NYSE: SBUX) was given a review by Credit Suisse about quantifying the impact of “My Starbucks Rewards” on the Starbucks’ same store sales figures. Effectively, this is measuring the so-called “digital flywheel.”

Credit Suisse pointed out that Starbucks has often pointed to the importance of the My Starbucks Rewards program as a same store sales driver. Still, their view is that Starbucks has never quantified the direct impact. This brokerage firm’s view suggest that membership growth in My Starbucks Rewards contributed about 310 basis points to same store sales in 2015 and about 240 basis points in 2016.

The long and short of the matter is that Credit Suisse believes that My Starbucks Rewards has accounted for approximately 40% of total U.S. same store sales each year. This was higher than what they expected, but it also looks like it is because My Starbucks Rewards members spend about three times more per year than those who are not My Starbucks Rewards members.

Credit Suisse now believes that growing the member base is now key to Starbucks maintaining its same store sales momentum.

What stands out about that stunning figures is that this creates a good news meets bad news scenario. The research report said:

My Starbucks Rewards membership growth has been slowing, which may help explain the recent deceleration in US comparable sales further deceleration in My Starbucks Rewards sign-ups would not bode well for same store sales trends. The good news: same store sales expectations have come down. If Starbucks can sustain the recent growth rate in My Starbucks Rewards membership, the company will be well on its way to at least meeting consensus forecasts (approximately around 5% US same store sales in Fiscal Year 2017 estimates)… we estimate that My Starbucks Rewards growth should add approximately 2%-plus to Fiscal Year 2017 if membership growth sustains in the mid-to-high teens.

Credit Suisse has only a Neutral rating on Starbucks shares and they have just a $55.00 price target for the stock versus a current share price of $57.50. The firm remains concerned that, even with few other companies having strong sales drivers, that the steady deceleration in same store sales and EBIT growth in recent quarters. Monday’s report shows that the firm would prefer to see stabilization in this trend before becoming more bullish — and the firm does not expect this investor day to offer major new catalysts like what had been seen with the launch of mobile ordering and pay in 2014.

One more concern that was brought up was that consensus Fiscal Year 2017 forecasts imply an acceleration in EBIT growth to ~16%, from ~12% in Fiscal Year 2016 outside of the 53rd week. They see a challenging earnings bar being set for the year ahead due to slowing same store sales, rising coffee costs, slightly worse foreign exchange drag, and also from higher investment spending.

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24/7 Wall St. addressed another concern last week on the announcement that Howard Schultz is retiring as CEO to focus on new initiatives. That concern — has Starbucks’ growth peaked???

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